Stampede Injuries – The Untold Story Of The Las Vegas Shooting

The shooting attack at Youtube Headquarters in San Bruno, California followed an all-too familiar pattern of many highly-publicized shootings in the US, with calls for more gun control coming from the usual suspects long before the facts were in:

My staff & I are closely following developments from the active shooter situation at YouTube HQ in San Bruno, CA. Thank you to our heroic first responders. Our Bay Area community – and all American communities – deserve real action to #EndGunViolence.

In the (lack of) information released surrounding the Las Vegas shooting, one thing that was grossly overlooked was the outsized number of injuries relative to deaths. The most recent count in January had the total at 58 dead, 851 wounded. Given that Paddock fired “over 1,100” rounds, many at “security guard” Jesus Campos, this would put his hit percentage at over 80%… at a distance of 400+ yards. It didn’t even add up when the count was 58 dead, 550 wounded, even when firing into a massive crowd.

In typical fashion surrounding the shooting, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo’s elaboration of the elevated injury count was missing details, to say the least…

The new overall injury figure provided Friday by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is significantly higher than the number of about 550 hurt that was provided last October.

Lombardo provided no further details about the injured or how people were hurt other than by gunfire.

…but it is far easier to put a cause to the injuries to stampedes, once you read some of the stories coming out of the incident:

“The bottom floor of MGM is massive, there were tens of thousands of people running inside, some with blood over their face, some with blood over their arms,” Melinda said, speaking hours later from a hotel room in the MGM, which was in lockdown.

“There was a woman with ripped jeans and blood on her knees.

“I said to her ‘you ok?’.

“She just yelled at me and said, ‘people don’t f**king care, they tried to squash me to get out’.

The Youtube shooting brought back eerie memories of this untold tale, and how dangerous “the crowd” can be in times of peril. In fact, there were more stampede injuries than shooting injuries, once the final tally was in. And while it is important to note that none of the deceased were trampled to death, that hasn’t always been the case, as the extreme case of the Mina Stampede illustrates:

On 24 September 2015 an event described as a “crush and stampede” caused deaths estimated at well over 2,000 pilgrims, suffocated or crushed during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The high number of deaths caused by the disaster make it the deadliest Hajj disaster in history.

The Saudi government continues to deny the estimated casualty totals, opting for a figure 1/3rd the total. Of the hundreds of human stampedes that have occurred over the years, many have indeed occurred in Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage, but they are a shockingly common occurrence that goes unreported. Notably, the Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island in 2003 resulted in more deaths and injuries than unharmed:

The Station nightclub fire occurred on Thursday, February 20, 2003, in West Warwick, Rhode Island, killing 100 people and injuring 230. The fire was caused by pyrotechnics set off by the tour manager of the evening’s headlining band Great White, which ignited plastic foam used as sound insulation in the walls and ceilings surrounding the stage. The toxic smoke, heat, and the resulting human crush toward the main exit killed 100; 230 were injured and another 132 escaped uninjured.

While the Youtube shooting fortunately resulted in no fatalities outside of the perpetrator, it has served as a reminder that the Las Vegas shooting still leaves us with far more questions than answers. Why is it that we already know so much about Nasim Aghdam, but we still know so little about Stephen Paddock (and Jesus Campos)?

Regardless, one of the lessons we can garner from both incidents is: always keep your wits about you, and know that a large crowd out of control can possibly be as deadly as a firearm.

However, we won’t be holding our breath waiting for the left to demand “crowd control”.